If I Should Die
Page 15
“I will,” I promised, and left my grandfather alone in a cloud of pipe smoke and musings about immortality.
NINETEEN
I SAT IN BED, WAITING TO FALL ASLEEP BUT unable to keep my mind from wandering back to La Maison and the library where Bran searched for a way to give Vincent a body. I wondered if he would look the same, and quickly decided that I didn’t care. To be able to touch him, see him, have him back . . . I didn’t care what he looked like as long as he was flesh and blood.
I distractedly picked up a book from the stack next to my bed, and seeing the title, I smiled. The Princess Bride. I had read it three or four times. Minimum. I had gotten it out a couple of weeks ago for a certain reason. And stuck here with no other recourse but to obsess about something that was out of my hands, any distraction was welcome. I let the words of “S. Morgenstern” draw me away from my reality into someone else’s fairy tale.
I had gotten to the sword fight with Inigo Montoya, which contains my favorite-ever fight-scene repartee, when my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the words, What are you reading?
I snapped my book shut and sat up in bed. “Holy cow, you scared me,” I said.
I’m sorry, mon ange. I thought you’d be expecting me.
“Well, I was hoping you’d come, but wasn’t sure if you’d remembered that promise—after all of the archives excitement,” I admitted, squirming.
How could I forget wanting to see you? he asked, and his words were like a hug. Um, Kate—why are you shoving that book under your blanket?
I sighed and pulled it out, holding it up to the air and flapping it around since I didn’t know where he was.
He laughed. Don’t tell me you’re still trying to win our longest-running argument.
“The book is better than the movie, Vincent. I just think that because you read it in English, you didn’t get the irony or the dry humor.”
Don’t tell me we’re going to argue about this while I’m volant and you’ve got the book in your hand. Talk about an unfair advantage.
I ignored his plea for a time-out. “The movie doesn’t have Fezzik’s and Inigo’s backstories,” I insisted.
The book doesn’t have Billy Crystal playing Miracle Max, he rebutted.
“Touché,” I mumbled, unable to argue with that point, “but this debate is not over.”
It’s a date.
I smiled. Placing the book on my bedside table, I sat up on the bed and crossed my legs, as if I were having a chat with a real person who sat right in front of me. At least I could pretend.
I focused on a framed picture on my dresser taken of me and Vincent on my last birthday. In it, we’re about to leave for our rowboat date, and the two of us are smiling like idiots. Something pinged painfully in my chest like a snapped rubber band.
“I can’t believe we’re even talking about this,” I said wistfully, “when this morning I didn’t know if I would ever talk to you again.”
I know what you mean, he responded. But talking books with you is actually one of my favorite activities.
I smiled, remembering the epic book conversations we used to have. We agreed on almost everything except book-to-film adaptations, in which case I almost always preferred the book and Vincent the movie. “I am guessing that if you are here arguing with me about twentieth-century fiction, there hasn’t been any progress back at La Maison?” I asked.
Nope, Vincent said. Bran’s going through the books, page by page, to make sure we don’t miss anything important. There is just as much, or probably more, about cases of migraines and fetus gender prediction than there is about revenants. But he’s worked his way through two of the five books. Pity he has to sleep, but I took the opportunity to pay my love a visit.
I leaned back against my headboard. “Vincent, do you think that this re-embodiment thing has a chance of working?”
Honestly, I think that if it actually existed, we would have heard of it before.
I nodded, outwardly agreeing, but inwardly determined to search every possibility. I agreed with what Mamie had said. My story with Vincent wasn’t going to end this way.
You should sleep, Vincent said.
I lay down and pulled the covers high over my shoulders, closing my eyes. “Tell me a story,” I said.
You want a bedtime story? Vincent asked, laughing.
“Yes. Something that will keep me from worrying. To distract me.”
Okay, he said. There’s a story my mother used to tell me when I was a little boy. It changed a bit with each telling, but I can give you the essentials.
“Perfect,” I said, already feeling sleep creep over me. Today had been exhausting, and I had no clue what tomorrow would bring.
It starts with a knight who has a dream in which he sees a beautiful lady dressed in blue, lying asleep in a boat traveling down a river. A voice tells him that the lady exists, that she is his true love, and that if he searches long and far he will find her. It also warns that if he attempts this journey, he will face danger and possible death on the way. When he awakes, the knight saddles up his horse and begins his quest to find her.
And with Vincent’s story materializing word by word in my head, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I was awakened the next morning by the same voice that had lulled me to sleep.
Bonjour, mon amour.
“Mmm,” I said, rolling from my side to my back and attempting to open my eyes. “Did you leave or have you been here this whole time?” I asked.
I went back home. And I know it’s early, but I thought you should know . . . Bran has found something.
My eyes popped wide-open and I sat straight up in bed. “What? What did he find?”
A story. You should come over and hear it for yourself. It’s a really old story, but it sounds credible and may give us some clues.
As he spoke I had clambered out of bed, put my jeans on, and was struggling with a wadded-up top.
You have time to find some clean clothes, my love, came Vincent’s words.
“No time!” I said, and then dashing over to my dresser, swiped my deodorant stick under each arm. “Okay, time for complete necessities,” I allowed. “And this shirt is clean, just not folded.”
Right, Vincent said, laughing.
Mamie was already up and having her coffee. “Bran, the healer, has found something. I need to go.”
“Okay, Katya,” she said, looking worried but bustling to the hall closet and grabbing her coat. “Just let me see you downstairs and make sure someone’s there to accompany you.” I didn’t tell her that Vincent was already here. It would have taken too long to explain, and maybe even freaked her out that he had been in my bedroom, invisible.
Two revenants I had seen at the New Year’s party appeared out of nowhere when we stepped through the door. Mamie kissed my cheeks and said, “You be on your way. Your Papy left early for his shop. Let him know what was discovered as soon as you can. He really wants to help.” She tried to look hopeful.
When we arrived, Gaspard was waiting for me at the door of the library. “Come on in,” he said excitedly. “Vincent told me you were on your way.” He led me to where Jean-Baptiste sat with Bran, who was pointing to a section written in a tiny scratching script in black ink.
“Ah, here’s Kate,” Bran said, as Jean-Baptiste stood and pulled out a chair for me. The guérisseur looked up at me and did the painful squint he had been doing ever since the numa punched him. I had begun to get used to it, but it still made me feel uncomfortable. “I’ve already given a summary of this to Messieurs Tabard and Grimod,” he said, “but I can read it to you word for word if you wish.”
“Please do,” Gaspard said, picking up a pencil and taking notes.
Bran began speaking in a spooky monotone—as if he were reading a spell—and followed along with his finger as he read.
“‘The Tale of the Thymiaterion, as recounted by a member of a group of flame-fingered guérisseurs—’”
“What’s that mean?” interrupted Gaspard.
Bran peered up at him, confused. “A thymiaterion? I have no idea.”
“No, no. I know what a thymiaterion is. It’s a type of ancient incense burner. What does ‘flame-fingered’ refer to?”
“Flame-fingers. It’s what our kind are called, the guérisseurs who deal with revenants.”
That explains all the hand paintings in the cave! I thought.
Bran continued, “‘Guérisseurs from Byzantium who fled the Plague and were now itinerant.’” He looked back up at us. “From the order that these tales were transcribed, I would suspect this refers to the Black Plague. Which means the mid-fourteenth century.”
“Yes, yes,” said Jean-Baptiste impatiently. “Please continue.”
“‘Just before the Plague, a group of bardia from Italy moved to Constantinople, bringing a valuable Etruscan treasury with them. Soon after, a powerful numa named Alexios killed the bardia chieftain, Ioanna, and bound her to him. Ioanna’s kindred destroyed Alexios, thus freeing her spirit from its bond to her numa captor.’
“‘Ioanna’s kindred sought out the flame-finger Georgios, to conduct a re-embodiment, telling him that the process had been conducted several times, ages before. He resisted, not knowing what he could possibly do. They instructed him that a giant bronze thymiaterion in their treasury was to be used, and that the object itself held enlightenment. Instructed by ancient symbols carved into the object, Georgios conducted the ceremony and reunited the wandering soul with a man-made body that became as her own.’”
My heartbeat accelerated. This meant there was hope for Vincent! I felt light-headed and had to restrain myself from leaping up and hugging everyone in the room. Instead, I calmed myself and listened harder. I didn’t want to miss a single word.
“‘We asked the travelers what became of the magical object. They told us that during the siege of their city the thymiaterion was smuggled out with the rest of the bardia’s trove, which had since been plundered and scattered throughout the land.’
“‘Thus was the story given us by flame-finger Nikephorus—previously of Constantinople but now a wanderer—transcribed as it came from his very mouth. We marveled at the fantastical story, and some disbelieved it. But my grandfather, who had not yet passed his gift to my mother, said that he sensed it was true. That this power was one of our own.’”
Bran carefully placed a piece of paper on the book to save his place. “So you see, my memory did not fail me. I knew I had heard of re-embodiment.”
And? I thought. I glanced at the others, who seemed to have the same reaction. We were all waiting for more.
Jean-Baptiste lowered his face to his hand and massaged his temples. Then, clearing his throat, he said, “And just to reconfirm. This is definitely your only record of re-embodiment—the fourteenth-century account of a band of itinerant bardia.”
Bran wrinkled his brow and looked defensive. “Well, my family seemed to think it had merit, because this was one of the tales that was kept and passed along, and one which my own mother pointed out to me as describing one of our powers, even if it was rarely used. But it seems that the instrument itself—the thy . . . whatever it is—is essential for the task we would be undertaking.”
My heart plunged. “So, just to clarify, we are looking for a giant incense burner that was lost over six hundred years ago,” I said, trying not to sound incredulous.
“I would suppose that more than one of these objects existed,” Gaspard responded carefully. “If it was, in fact, an important magical tool in the ancient times, I would guess that several were created. It wasn’t as easy to fly across the globe to a convocation of kindred, but there was communication between widespread revenant cultures. Information did manage to spread globally between revenants.”
An ancient legend about a magical incense burner. That wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but at least it was something. Determined not to let my disappointment show, I took my notebook from my bag and jotted down some notes, asking Bran a couple of questions to clarify. Gaspard gave me a curious look.
“I thought my grandfather could follow up on any leads you find with his own resources,” I said.
Gaspard frowned. “Not to disrespect your grandfather, my dear, but I doubt he would be in possession of anything that our extensive library would not already have.”
“Well, I found the copy of Immortal Love in his gallery, which is what led me to finding Bran and his family in the first place,” I countered.
“That is true,” Gaspard conceded, “but I honestly don’t think you should trouble your grandfather with this. With our resources here we should be able to turn up the information needed, if it exists at all.” He waved his hand to indicate the size of the library.
“Why are you reluctant to have me include my grandfather in this research?” I asked him point-blank.
Gaspard umm-ed and ah-ed for a second, and then Jean-Baptiste cut in to save him. “We aren’t used to including humans in our dealings except on a support level,” he said in an apologetic tone. “Maybe that is shortsighted on our part, but our insularity has a purpose: survival. It’s just what we’re used to. This isn’t to say we don’t respect your grandparents and value their trust.”
I nodded. “But now we’re in a race against time to find the information, right?” I stood and tucked my notebook into my bag.
Gaspard nodded.
I grabbed my coat. “So, with your permission, I’ll work with my grandfather to see what we can find.” I began walking out the door, and then turning, gave them a competitive grin and said, “Beat you to it!”
NINETEEN
I SAT IN BED, WAITING TO FALL ASLEEP BUT unable to keep my mind from wandering back to La Maison and the library where Bran searched for a way to give Vincent a body. I wondered if he would look the same, and quickly decided that I didn’t care. To be able to touch him, see him, have him back . . . I didn’t care what he looked like as long as he was flesh and blood.
I distractedly picked up a book from the stack next to my bed, and seeing the title, I smiled. The Princess Bride. I had read it three or four times. Minimum. I had gotten it out a couple of weeks ago for a certain reason. And stuck here with no other recourse but to obsess about something that was out of my hands, any distraction was welcome. I let the words of “S. Morgenstern” draw me away from my reality into someone else’s fairy tale.
I had gotten to the sword fight with Inigo Montoya, which contains my favorite-ever fight-scene repartee, when my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the words, What are you reading?
I snapped my book shut and sat up in bed. “Holy cow, you scared me,” I said.
I’m sorry, mon ange. I thought you’d be expecting me.
“Well, I was hoping you’d come, but wasn’t sure if you’d remembered that promise—after all of the archives excitement,” I admitted, squirming.
How could I forget wanting to see you? he asked, and his words were like a hug. Um, Kate—why are you shoving that book under your blanket?
I sighed and pulled it out, holding it up to the air and flapping it around since I didn’t know where he was.
He laughed. Don’t tell me you’re still trying to win our longest-running argument.
“The book is better than the movie, Vincent. I just think that because you read it in English, you didn’t get the irony or the dry humor.”
Don’t tell me we’re going to argue about this while I’m volant and you’ve got the book in your hand. Talk about an unfair advantage.
I ignored his plea for a time-out. “The movie doesn’t have Fezzik’s and Inigo’s backstories,” I insisted.
The book doesn’t have Billy Crystal playing Miracle Max, he rebutted.
“Touché,” I mumbled, unable to argue with that point, “but this debate is not over.”
It’s a date.
I smiled. Placing the book on my bedside table, I sat up on the bed and crossed my legs, as if I were having a chat with a real person who sat right in front of me. At least I could pretend.
I focused on a framed picture on my dresser taken of me and Vincent on my last birthday. In it, we’re about to leave for our rowboat date, and the two of us are smiling like idiots. Something pinged painfully in my chest like a snapped rubber band.
“I can’t believe we’re even talking about this,” I said wistfully, “when this morning I didn’t know if I would ever talk to you again.”
I know what you mean, he responded. But talking books with you is actually one of my favorite activities.
I smiled, remembering the epic book conversations we used to have. We agreed on almost everything except book-to-film adaptations, in which case I almost always preferred the book and Vincent the movie. “I am guessing that if you are here arguing with me about twentieth-century fiction, there hasn’t been any progress back at La Maison?” I asked.
Nope, Vincent said. Bran’s going through the books, page by page, to make sure we don’t miss anything important. There is just as much, or probably more, about cases of migraines and fetus gender prediction than there is about revenants. But he’s worked his way through two of the five books. Pity he has to sleep, but I took the opportunity to pay my love a visit.
I leaned back against my headboard. “Vincent, do you think that this re-embodiment thing has a chance of working?”
Honestly, I think that if it actually existed, we would have heard of it before.
I nodded, outwardly agreeing, but inwardly determined to search every possibility. I agreed with what Mamie had said. My story with Vincent wasn’t going to end this way.
You should sleep, Vincent said.
I lay down and pulled the covers high over my shoulders, closing my eyes. “Tell me a story,” I said.
You want a bedtime story? Vincent asked, laughing.
“Yes. Something that will keep me from worrying. To distract me.”
Okay, he said. There’s a story my mother used to tell me when I was a little boy. It changed a bit with each telling, but I can give you the essentials.
“Perfect,” I said, already feeling sleep creep over me. Today had been exhausting, and I had no clue what tomorrow would bring.
It starts with a knight who has a dream in which he sees a beautiful lady dressed in blue, lying asleep in a boat traveling down a river. A voice tells him that the lady exists, that she is his true love, and that if he searches long and far he will find her. It also warns that if he attempts this journey, he will face danger and possible death on the way. When he awakes, the knight saddles up his horse and begins his quest to find her.
And with Vincent’s story materializing word by word in my head, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I was awakened the next morning by the same voice that had lulled me to sleep.
Bonjour, mon amour.
“Mmm,” I said, rolling from my side to my back and attempting to open my eyes. “Did you leave or have you been here this whole time?” I asked.
I went back home. And I know it’s early, but I thought you should know . . . Bran has found something.
My eyes popped wide-open and I sat straight up in bed. “What? What did he find?”
A story. You should come over and hear it for yourself. It’s a really old story, but it sounds credible and may give us some clues.
As he spoke I had clambered out of bed, put my jeans on, and was struggling with a wadded-up top.
You have time to find some clean clothes, my love, came Vincent’s words.
“No time!” I said, and then dashing over to my dresser, swiped my deodorant stick under each arm. “Okay, time for complete necessities,” I allowed. “And this shirt is clean, just not folded.”
Right, Vincent said, laughing.
Mamie was already up and having her coffee. “Bran, the healer, has found something. I need to go.”
“Okay, Katya,” she said, looking worried but bustling to the hall closet and grabbing her coat. “Just let me see you downstairs and make sure someone’s there to accompany you.” I didn’t tell her that Vincent was already here. It would have taken too long to explain, and maybe even freaked her out that he had been in my bedroom, invisible.
Two revenants I had seen at the New Year’s party appeared out of nowhere when we stepped through the door. Mamie kissed my cheeks and said, “You be on your way. Your Papy left early for his shop. Let him know what was discovered as soon as you can. He really wants to help.” She tried to look hopeful.
When we arrived, Gaspard was waiting for me at the door of the library. “Come on in,” he said excitedly. “Vincent told me you were on your way.” He led me to where Jean-Baptiste sat with Bran, who was pointing to a section written in a tiny scratching script in black ink.
“Ah, here’s Kate,” Bran said, as Jean-Baptiste stood and pulled out a chair for me. The guérisseur looked up at me and did the painful squint he had been doing ever since the numa punched him. I had begun to get used to it, but it still made me feel uncomfortable. “I’ve already given a summary of this to Messieurs Tabard and Grimod,” he said, “but I can read it to you word for word if you wish.”
“Please do,” Gaspard said, picking up a pencil and taking notes.
Bran began speaking in a spooky monotone—as if he were reading a spell—and followed along with his finger as he read.
“‘The Tale of the Thymiaterion, as recounted by a member of a group of flame-fingered guérisseurs—’”
“What’s that mean?” interrupted Gaspard.
Bran peered up at him, confused. “A thymiaterion? I have no idea.”
“No, no. I know what a thymiaterion is. It’s a type of ancient incense burner. What does ‘flame-fingered’ refer to?”
“Flame-fingers. It’s what our kind are called, the guérisseurs who deal with revenants.”
That explains all the hand paintings in the cave! I thought.
Bran continued, “‘Guérisseurs from Byzantium who fled the Plague and were now itinerant.’” He looked back up at us. “From the order that these tales were transcribed, I would suspect this refers to the Black Plague. Which means the mid-fourteenth century.”
“Yes, yes,” said Jean-Baptiste impatiently. “Please continue.”
“‘Just before the Plague, a group of bardia from Italy moved to Constantinople, bringing a valuable Etruscan treasury with them. Soon after, a powerful numa named Alexios killed the bardia chieftain, Ioanna, and bound her to him. Ioanna’s kindred destroyed Alexios, thus freeing her spirit from its bond to her numa captor.’
“‘Ioanna’s kindred sought out the flame-finger Georgios, to conduct a re-embodiment, telling him that the process had been conducted several times, ages before. He resisted, not knowing what he could possibly do. They instructed him that a giant bronze thymiaterion in their treasury was to be used, and that the object itself held enlightenment. Instructed by ancient symbols carved into the object, Georgios conducted the ceremony and reunited the wandering soul with a man-made body that became as her own.’”
My heartbeat accelerated. This meant there was hope for Vincent! I felt light-headed and had to restrain myself from leaping up and hugging everyone in the room. Instead, I calmed myself and listened harder. I didn’t want to miss a single word.
“‘We asked the travelers what became of the magical object. They told us that during the siege of their city the thymiaterion was smuggled out with the rest of the bardia’s trove, which had since been plundered and scattered throughout the land.’
“‘Thus was the story given us by flame-finger Nikephorus—previously of Constantinople but now a wanderer—transcribed as it came from his very mouth. We marveled at the fantastical story, and some disbelieved it. But my grandfather, who had not yet passed his gift to my mother, said that he sensed it was true. That this power was one of our own.’”
Bran carefully placed a piece of paper on the book to save his place. “So you see, my memory did not fail me. I knew I had heard of re-embodiment.”
And? I thought. I glanced at the others, who seemed to have the same reaction. We were all waiting for more.
Jean-Baptiste lowered his face to his hand and massaged his temples. Then, clearing his throat, he said, “And just to reconfirm. This is definitely your only record of re-embodiment—the fourteenth-century account of a band of itinerant bardia.”
Bran wrinkled his brow and looked defensive. “Well, my family seemed to think it had merit, because this was one of the tales that was kept and passed along, and one which my own mother pointed out to me as describing one of our powers, even if it was rarely used. But it seems that the instrument itself—the thy . . . whatever it is—is essential for the task we would be undertaking.”
My heart plunged. “So, just to clarify, we are looking for a giant incense burner that was lost over six hundred years ago,” I said, trying not to sound incredulous.
“I would suppose that more than one of these objects existed,” Gaspard responded carefully. “If it was, in fact, an important magical tool in the ancient times, I would guess that several were created. It wasn’t as easy to fly across the globe to a convocation of kindred, but there was communication between widespread revenant cultures. Information did manage to spread globally between revenants.”
An ancient legend about a magical incense burner. That wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but at least it was something. Determined not to let my disappointment show, I took my notebook from my bag and jotted down some notes, asking Bran a couple of questions to clarify. Gaspard gave me a curious look.
“I thought my grandfather could follow up on any leads you find with his own resources,” I said.
Gaspard frowned. “Not to disrespect your grandfather, my dear, but I doubt he would be in possession of anything that our extensive library would not already have.”
“Well, I found the copy of Immortal Love in his gallery, which is what led me to finding Bran and his family in the first place,” I countered.
“That is true,” Gaspard conceded, “but I honestly don’t think you should trouble your grandfather with this. With our resources here we should be able to turn up the information needed, if it exists at all.” He waved his hand to indicate the size of the library.
“Why are you reluctant to have me include my grandfather in this research?” I asked him point-blank.
Gaspard umm-ed and ah-ed for a second, and then Jean-Baptiste cut in to save him. “We aren’t used to including humans in our dealings except on a support level,” he said in an apologetic tone. “Maybe that is shortsighted on our part, but our insularity has a purpose: survival. It’s just what we’re used to. This isn’t to say we don’t respect your grandparents and value their trust.”
I nodded. “But now we’re in a race against time to find the information, right?” I stood and tucked my notebook into my bag.
Gaspard nodded.
I grabbed my coat. “So, with your permission, I’ll work with my grandfather to see what we can find.” I began walking out the door, and then turning, gave them a competitive grin and said, “Beat you to it!”
